Exhibition themes The lady and the unicorn

THE LADY AND THE UNICORN

The idea for the collaboration between Arthur Boyd and Peter Porter on The lady and the unicorn prints and poems was inspired by Georges Mora who had seen the beautiful medieval tapestries on this theme at the Cluny Museum in Paris and thought it would be an ideal subject for art and poetry. Australian-born poet Porter, like Boyd, was living in London when the idea was proposed, and greatly enjoyed their collaboration. As he wrote:

‘Arthur Boyd is a major artist in world terms and rare in being inspired by words. To be able to take part in a double universe—the one fantastical yet always real, the other abstract but unable to escape meaning—is a privilege. The poems and pictures continue to live separate lives, but they could never have been born without each other.’

In Porter’s poems he engages with the notion of the sacred unicorn as the outsider—the only animal that does not make it onto Noah’s ark. In his version of the tale there is an emperor who desperately wants to capture the rare creature and sends out his hunters. They are aided by a lady with whom the unicorn has fallen in love. She initially reciprocates but becomes bored and eventually betrays him. While the unicorn is hunted down, he is shown to be a regenerative force in the art and poetry. Boyd’s prints on this theme are among the most exquisite works in his artistic output.